Mostly Dead Means Slightly Alive [YGO/SAO FI ft Nihilo]

[Spectral Waltz]

Chapter 1

Virtual reality, true 'Full Dive' as it was becoming known. The ability to inject sensations directly into the mind and let a person truly experience a world that exists purely within the digital substrate.

A Holy Grail of entertainment ever since its first conceptualization, rapaciously desired and seemingly impossible to realize all at once. Theories were crafted, dozens of concepts were suggested by available science and technology and hundreds more put to paper by artists of all disciplines. Yet even the most reasonable-seeming remained tantalizingly out of reach, the brain and mind too poorly understood, the technology at hand already so precise and yet still lacking when it came to the precision such dreams might demand.

[ARGUS presents…]

Yet the text before one's eyes, not projected from a screen, simply hanging in space, told a story all on its own. The echo of words…

"Link start!"

…Syllables that came off one's tongue resonating in the mind unshackled, the sense of one's own body bled away into something muted and distant, all but intangible.

[...in partnership with Industrial Illusions Ltd.]

Colours bloomed in the space, aurora borealis writ small, a corona of violet that swiftly faded into blues, then greens, then yellows in turn. Smears of shades swirling through the visible spectrum, overlapping and blending until the black space was swallowed by white, and white in turn gains texture and tangibility. Scents reached invisible nostrils, cool wind brushed a formless and unseen face: damp of rain, tingle of ozone, a chill across barely-there as the blossoming clouds finally parted.

An endless sky, and a vast steel castle suspended in the blue. A final line of text wisped across it, titling the wondrous vision before being pulled away in the wind.

[SWORD ART ONLINE]

Then the clouds rose up again, white swallowing it all, and the distant sense of falling… Falling… Falling…

…Slower…

…and unseen feet touched cool and polished hardwood with no more impact than one might feel descending a step.

Once again colours bled into the white, oil paints poured onto wet canvas this time, swirling and pooling as they resolved into a certain configuration. Velvety reds, rich wooden browns, brass fittings gleaming cheerily in light that has almost the exact texture and feel of oil lamps yet lacks that certain faint flicker. It was a dressing room, at least in approximate appearance, yet for all the 'changing stalls' one could see, this seems centered on a circle in the middle of the floor, a circle in which a wireframe is inscribing itself in the air, the shape of a body starting out as rough outlines and rapidly refining itself as a sign above proudly proclaims what any experienced user would likely have guessed.

'Character Creation'

If the mind currently free of a vessel had lips, they would threaten to lop their head right off, they were so giddy.

Now, time to make an unassuming foundation that'd play nice with the largely nature-driven early floors. It was all forests and mountains and the odd river and lake, with the most exotic things got being plant and bug monsters until you hit the ruined city full of undead. Thus, a weathered and weary ranger, to perfectly slot in with the things from the deep woods that she'd be smacking cards out of and ideally getting one as a mount.

The closed beta test had promised character data would be retained in full release, unlike the earlier Alpha they'd gotten all this info from via forums, so players had point blank told to make their characters with the expectation of carrying them forward into launch proper. Therefore, the very first thing that was added was a milky grey-white eye and deep furrows of clawmarks on the surrounding flesh, giving a little hint as to where things would be headed build and motif wise.

From there, everything else just fell together naturally, a healthy brown-amber eye with but a hint of exhausted darkening around it. Brown hair pulled in a messy ponytail, a petite figure belying whipcord muscle built for handling a bow and trek through countless kilometers of woodland, a nice medley of brown leathers and green-dyed cloth… then came the little details. Adjusting the scars so they'd tug slightly on the cheek and lend themselves to a small, lopsided smile by way of resting face. Some callouses that took handling the practice weapons—bow, dagger, spear, the works—the chargen provided to properly arrange. Very precise touchups to the foot and ankle structure to make padding silently on all terrains come easily and comfortably, on top of enough flexibility to grip down on roots and branches provided something like leather sandals were in play.

It was a fun game of finding yet more and more minutia that could be changed at a literal thought or, failing that due to the sheer finesse needed, gently molding the avatar like clay. It took an entire two hours but by the time the player, now happily christened Helewise Golgari—suitably high fantasy, by their reckoning—, decided she was done it was with a warm fuzzy feeling of contentment.

The window full of sliders lay discarded and forgotten as refinements had quickly grown more and more precise, and by the time it was done felt as though it should be gathering dust if it wasn't for the timeless virtual nature of the space. There was no offer to save the configuration as they finally accepted their digital guise, but then again previews for SAO had made a point of mentioning that capacity for alts—additional characters for a single player—would not be available for this launch, so the lack of even a perfunctory option was not so surprising.

Spoiler

https://cdn.imgchest.com/files/bcd408dc2372.jpg

The dressing room faded away, leaving only Helewise, and the point of view was plucked up in a way that should have been nauseating if not for the lack of features around them to confuse the eye and inner ear. Perspective swung smoothly, curving around the body in a broad arc that bent inwards, terminating at the back of the head.

A split second of nothingness.

-step-

-tap-

Sensation underfoot, boot and sock and the irregular pressures of cobblestones muted by both. Sounds of chatter, dozens of voices, then hundreds. Sun on one's shoulders—her shoulders, now—and pure blackness displaying one last message in small and understated letters before giving way to the irregular darkness of one's eyelids.

[Welcome to Aincrad]

Mismatched eyes opened, and the central plaza of the City of Beginnings stretched out before her new body.

It was not as packed as it could have been, surely. The servers had been live for hours and the population had started to disperse accordingly, but still there were hundreds of people to be seen from even their single vantage point. New arrivals gawked as they drifted in and out of nearby streets and alleyways alongside more experienced players, distinct in how the former stared and meandered while the latter moved with some semblance of purpose. Although there was a certain middle ground in people like Helewise, who had done their reading on the Alpha Test. In the distance massive walls rose, and above them the underside of the second floor could only just be seen through drifting wisps of fluffy white clouds.

More than a few players were simply standing and staring at thin air with one finger raised, peering at their menus, no doubt. There was a gently pulsing 'new message' icon in the corner of Helewise' vision, after all, and swiping to open the menu brought it up automatically. Not a tutorial, not quite, but a gentle warning that all Alpha Test accounts had been reset, and while avatars may have been preserved, skills and gear—had they had any previously—were gone and would need to be reacquired. A glance down at the inventory tab showed a number of CoR above it, a slightly more generous amount than previous tests had offered. If she remembered the guides right, it'd be enough for a starting weapon, basic armor, and perhaps a potion or two to get someone going.

Now to gear up.

She planned to eventually go for a more Death Knight sort of setup, but this early on, when she had no mount and gear options were limited? Speed and range would be a hell of a lot more fun.

That meant going for leather armor as the best protection she could get without compromising on speed or stealth. But if she remembered that one forum thread right, the only ranged weapons in SAO were thrown, which… honestly, suited her just fine. Because it meant she'd grab spear skills which would then be gangbusters once she had a mount but for now would suit her just fine for hucking javelins at problems and keeping monsters at a distance.

The overall shape of the City of Beginnings had been mapped, but the details were lacking, possibly for lack of interest on Alpha testers' parts but more likely for lack of will with how massive it was. Four enormous roads ventured out from that central square, the northern and western ones leading to the great gates in the walls that separated the city's safe zone from Aincrad's various dangers in the field. Opposite them, the eastern road made its way towards the cathedral, the main respawn point for players on the first floor while the southern road was quickly shaded by the looming bulk of the Black Iron Palace. Between each of these wide major thoroughfares were dozens of smaller gaps in the buildings, leading to smaller and narrower side streets that criss-crossed the city in a rough grid shape. A few enterprising players darted in and out of them here and there but given how much of the city was set aside for player housing only the lucky or the knowing were likely to find anything amidst the thousands of empty lots.

There'd been a lot that Alpha testers either hadn't figured out or hadn't bothered to share—there were only a thousand of them, after all—, but just going from what was known a faint pattern emerged. The largest streets were populated by design, dozens of vendors making for a truly wide variety of options all in close proximity, maximizing efficiency. Meanwhile, the smaller streets were nearly unpopulated, a scattering of smaller shops that occasionally sold some niche items but mostly held all the same stock, making searching for them largely pointless unless you were particularly dedicated to some very specific bit.

But hidden amongst the smaller streets were the alleyways that wound narrowly through the buildings, barely wide enough for two people to walk abreast and often tucked into the geography in such a way that their entranceways blended in. Far too easy to miss. These places didn't have shops in them, a fact that nearly every post mentioning them seemed to make a point of reinforcing, but the steady stream of careful deflections told a story of its own. Especially for someone so addicted to exploration as Helewise.

There probably really were no shops, but that didn't necessarily mean no vendors, and it definitely didn't mean no nothing at all, because why go to all that trouble to hide these places if you weren't going to put something in them? The Alpha test rules regarding the sharing of in-game screenshots and footage had been impressively firmly enforced, but plenty of unsubtle hints had reached players' ears all the same, and the occasional picture that slipped through the cracks for long enough to become self-perpetuating had been proof enough for most.

That still left finding such places of course, but as long as one was willing to commit to a little searching they'd likely manage sooner or later, and at such a low level…

['Searching' +1]

The effect was slight but noticeable, a faint darkening at the edges of vision, a small stack of wooden crates becoming sharper, the gap between them and the wall beyond coming into perspective for a split second. Short enough to miss with an ill-timed blink or a careless look away, the latter an all-too-real possibility for a player looking about after that sudden skill popup entered their vision.

Helewise for her part simply slipped behind the boxes and into the narrow passage beyond, even if nothing in the world could've kept the smile off her face. That was some smooth integration to the point only the holographic pop-ups made her remember this was a videogame. Especially with how she could feel her scars tug at the lines of her face, whatever Argus intern had slaved over this minutia had her eternal gratitude.

The city closed over her head, shrouding the way in a dusty gloom. Narrow shafts of sunlight illuminated the way, shining on the small heaps of displaced cobbles and patches of moss that had grown up to consume the paving. The cheerful green 'Safe Zone' indicator in the far corner of her peripheral vision remained steady, the trail less outright menacing and more gently eerie as it descended to run alongside some sort of waterway. In any real and lived-in city it would likely be a sewer (or at least reek of piss like one), but thankfully the developers' commitment to detail hadn't extended that far, making for a surprisingly picturesque little scene. Pale stone lightly overgrown, clear water gurgling as it flowed steadily by, its surface a meter or so below the edge of the walkway, cast in warm tones…

"Who goes there…?"

It was in the midst of this moment that the challenge rasped from the shadows beyond, and a figure shuffled into view. Threadbare violet robes hung from bony shoulders and kept the face in shadow but for a faint shifting as the jaw worked quietly, seeming to make some sort of silent assessment before they spoke again, every syllable scraped from their vocal cords with painstaking slowness. "A swordmaster? After all these years? Not pacted, though… A pity…"

'Score!' Helewise cheered inwardly, even as outwardly she just tilted her head quizzically in a way that made her ponytail swish slightly, "What kind of pact are we talking about here?"

"Hmm… You do not know, perhaps there are none left who know now, how long it has been…" Apparently asking after the mention of a 'pact' had been the correct trigger as the NPC shuffled a little closer, their motions scraping hollowly against the stone.

"Denied earth's embrace, we wander. Bereft of life's touch, the eons hollow us, again and again." A chuckle that rattled like bones down a dry well before the cloak shifted, tiny pinpricks of light reflecting within the shadows of the hood. "You are not yet ready, but you could be, in time…"

Perhaps the search skill triggered again, perhaps it was merely a trick of the light, but for a moment, Helewise could see that there was no face beneath that hood. Only an outline of a skull looming from the shadows before fading away as quickly as it had come. "Would you seek to walk the path of we forgotten and decayed?"

She didn't flinch at the photorealistic look, nor at the ominous words. She smiled, "Yes. After all, it clearly has good company and I'm a wannabe cartographer, why not explore it ahead of time and introduce people to it? Some more gently than others."

Helewise had not been expecting to run into something like this, especially this early, but like hell she'd miss out on the opportunity.

"Take this, then," another shift beneath the cloak and a hand emerged. Skinless, fleshless, fingers of white bone holding between them a violet rectangle. A card depicting a humanoid figure, desiccated brown, blooming from a haze of blue-green energy. A little notification popped up in the corner of Helewise' vision.

[Quest Accepted: "Seeker of Beyond" | Play a Zombie-type monster in 25 Duels. 0/25]

The card was one such monster, naturally, a 'Regenerating Mummy'. Another rattling laugh emerged as Helewise took it without fear, and the chattering undead took a step back. The little quest window zipping up into the 'sidequests' tab of Helewise' menu once she dismissed it.

"When you have come to understand our nature, return, and you will be initiated." With its piece apparently spoken, the skeleton finally turned and began to shuffle away with that same scraping gait.
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